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Sunday School Lesson
Obedience Brings Blessings In This Life (Revelation 22:1-7)
dicative of the fact that life per- meates outward from God to his people in this city.
What is there is a tree. This tree (described as a grove of in- terconnected trees like Colorado aspens) is spoken of as one tree (reminiscent of Genesis 2:9). Like the river, it teems with life. This tree is extremely produc- tive. It bears twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.
Like the river and the tree it- self, the leaves on that tree also teem with life. The leaves heal the nations that stream into this city. Heaven is a place of incred- ible life.
What Is Not There Revelation 22:3-5
Two things cannot exist in this city.
The first is the curse. What was brought into the old heaven and old earth due to sin (Gene- sis 3:17-19) is now eradicated. With the curse of sin totally gone, the inhabitants of the city (servants of God) are freed to see
him, bear his name on their heads, and serve him. With the curse forever gone, nothing will hinder believers from serving God fully.
The second thing not in the city is night.
In fact, there will be no more night. Physical darkness will be banished, since God is there and he is light (Revelation 21:23). But spiritual darkness will also be banished, since God is there and his character cannot allow moral impurity to exist in his presence (1 John 1:5; Revela- tion 21:8). The servants of God now share fully in his moral pu- rity. This allows them to reign forever and ever with their God.
What Is Important Revelation 22:6, 7
With life embraced and dark- ness banished in this eternal city, what could possibly remain for these servants of God living out their existence in the old heaven and old earth? Maybe just one thing—perfect obedi- ence.
The same angel repeats the theological affirmation: These words are trustworthy and true. The angel invites John to take the truthfulness of what he saw to the bank.
God gave his inspired mes- sage (literally, Spirit) to his prophets (inspired spokesper- sons like John the apostle) via his angel (messenger from Heaven) to show the servants what would soon take place.
Then the Lord (the great I Am) himself declares that he is coming soon. The word soon gives us pause. How soon is soon? Perhaps the best resolu- tion is that God’s soon is differ- ent than our soon.
This we know: a blessing awaits the one who obeys the prophetic word in the book of Revelation. This is how the Rev- elation began (Revelation 1:3).
Obedience brings blessing in this life and the life to come. That is something to be thankful for this week.
Israel is a dry land in the midst of various bodies of water. To the west is the Mediterranean (Great) Sea. To the east is the Dead Sea. In addition, to the north is the Sea of Galilee. Run- ning down through Israel is the Jordan River. Whatever it touches is green. Whatever it does not touch is brown.
Israel, like other Middle East- ern countries, knew the value of water. Not surprisingly part of John’s vision into the land of no more tears involved water.
Since John wrote Revelation, we know he knew of physical water (John 4:7) as well as spiritual water (4:10). The
same was true as John peered into more of the details of the New Jerusalem.
What Is There Revelation 22:1, 2
What is there is water. The same angel who spoke to John earlier (Revelation 21:9) now showed him the river in this eternal city. This river has spe- cial spiritual qualities. It teems with life. It is clear as crystal like the rest of the city. Most impor- tantly, the source of the river is God himself (Genesis 1:10; Ezekiel 47:1-12). God is the source of life (John 10:10). This river runs down the middle of the great street of the city, in-
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